Two interesting items re privacy. A poll released last week by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion revealed that fully half of Americans who have a profile on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are worried about their privacy. And the publication of results from a clever study of shoppers in a Pittsburgh shopping mall explored how willingly people would forfeit personal privacy in exchange for tangible benefits, in this case more money. Of the 50 percent of people surveyed who were concerned about social networking privacy, 23 percent are very concerned and 27 percent were concerned. “We’re in an era of information Read more

The global financial crisis of 2008 was a wake-up call for the world. But while many people were calling for updated regulations and even the breakup or nationalization of the big banks, it became clear to us that restoring long-term confidence in the financial services industry would require more than government intervention and new rules.

The world needed a profoundly new approach to governing the global economy, including a new modus operandi for financial services based on business principles like transparency, integrity and collaboration. Read more

A new report says that a growing portion of adult internet users are concerned about their digital online identity. More than half (57%) of internet users over age 18 say they have used a search engine to look up their name and see what information was available about them online, up from 47% who did so in 2006. And a big surprise: Despite their reputation for being reckless with their online reputations, it turns out that young adults, what I call the Net Generation, are the most active online reputation managers. More than any other age group, they care about what others can see or read about them. Read more

As an author of many books, I’m thankful for the hard work of my publishers, but I also I’m fascinated by changes in the publishing industry. An author self-publishing his or her book — also known as the “vanity press” — has traditionally been viewed with a bit of disdain. It usually meant that the author was unable to find a publisher willing to risk the time and money required to bring a book to market, either because the topic wasn’t interesting and/or the writing quality was poor. Read more

I recently watched a video of Jack Dorsey’s presentation to The99percent conference, which you can see here . In it, Dorsey shares three core takeaways from his experiences in conceiving and building Twitter. 1) Draw: get your idea out of your head and share it, 2) Luck: assessing when is the right time to execute the idea, 3) Iterate: absorb the feedback and refine the idea Read more

I’ve just read an incredibly depressing Fast Company piece on InnoCentive and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The story reports on a recent blog posting by Dwayne Spradlin, President and Chief Executive Officer of InnoCentive. Read more

I was speaking at the recent Google Zeitgeist conference in London. On one panel, a privacy advocate argued that she was against transparency, and that all this talk about openness was frightening. She argued that anyone who favors privacy should oppose transparency. I for one, am both a transparency advocate and a privacy advocate. Transparency is an opportunity and even obligation for corporations and other institutions. But it is not an opportunity or obligation of individuals Read more